Requirements Management Tools?

[JeanneP]

I'm currently in the thick of investigating how using an RM tool could
help my employer, and figuring out which one(s) to pursue.

What software does your company use to track requirements? What
do you think about it? What do you hate, and what do you favor?
What can you say about other RM tools with which you've had
experience?

We have large complex hard real-time systems developed on highly
agressive schedules (consumer products) that we don't have much
say about. The ability to reuse work breakdowns from project to
project is vital, as is the ability to show the histories of changes.
Our high level requirements are almost always handed to us by our
customers, so quick importing from external document sources
would be most nifty.

I've found a few websites listing and discussing various RM tools,
but those discussions are not based on personal experience. I
would really like to hear first hand from some users. It's the daily
usability issues that are hard to gather from website marketing
material and even from evaluating downloads. I'm currently looking
at tools like Active! Focus (though that may be too small), TrueReq,
SpeeDEV, Catalyze, Caliber RM, and the like.

And, do you know of any such tools that use MySQL and run on
Linux? All the tools I've seen require a Windows server and most
come with a DB like Oracle or Access. We'd get that if we needed
it, but I'd like to know if a Linux solution is out there.

Thank you,

JP

[Pekka Makinen]

> And, do you know of any such tools that use MySQL and run on
> Linux? All the tools I've seen require a Windows server and most
> come with a DB like Oracle or Access. We'd get that if we needed
> it, but I'd like to know if a Linux solution is out there.

Telelogic DOORS is available also as a Linux version (Redhat
Linux Enterprise 3 ES) - though the database behind it is not
any SQL database, but proprietary.

--
SoftQA - Requirements engineering consultancy and training
http://www.softqa.fi/
To reply by E-mail, please remove the NOSPAM from my reply address

[pdt256]

We us phprojekt to track customer requests and inter-office tasks. I
personally don't like the internal design, but the finished product
works ok. There are a few bugs that we could correct if we could
upgrade to the latest version. Don't try to modify the program.. It's
heavily hacked code written by a German team.
-JI

[Tools]

Here's a couple resources that may help:

The April 2005 issue of Software Development magazine has an article
about the major Requirements Management tools.

There's an article on Requirements Management in a PDF file you can
download from the Introductions page at www.excelsoftware.com

Take a look at WinA&D from Excel Software for requirements management,
traceability, import/export, report generation, etc.

JeanneP wrote:

> I'm currently in the thick of investigating how using an RM tool could
> help my employer, and figuring out which one(s) to pursue.
>
> What software does your company use to track requirements? What
> do you think about it? What do you hate, and what do you favor?
> What can you say about other RM tools with which you've had
> experience?
>

> ...
>
> JP

[jpet...@harris.com]

Thank you all for your responses.

I found the article in the magazine to be disapointing, because it
didn't answer the questions I have, for example:
- Do you spend more time thinking about the requirements or about
how to serve the tool? (I've recently heard this criticism about
TestDirector.)
- Is the tool stable?
- Can you see as much information at once as if you're looking at a
doc or spreadsheet, within the tool? Can you edit the information
right in that view? (What's the UI like?)
- How does it compare to Word or Excel for entering information,
veiwing what's in there, and editing content? I work in a lean
and fast-paced nonregulated business, and if the tool isn't as
fast and easy as Word and Excel, users will not adopt it.
- Does the tool demand training, and how easy is it to pick up?
- How much overhead does the tool need, in terms of setting up a
project and for ongoing administration?

Now that I've had time to look at a few more tools, does anyone have
any comments about DOORS or RMTrak, particularly with respect to the
questions above?

Thank you,
JP

(The email address for the post is obsolete, so please post your answer
here. Thanks.)